LANGUAGE AND DRESS.
Distinctions between different races, which depend on varieties of
character, customs, or means of livelihood, require discriminating study
for their apprehension. But a different language and an unusual dress
are marks which present themselves to all observers--the one to the ear
and the other to the eye--even on the briefest scrutiny. The inhabitants
of Gairloch have still a language entirely different to that of the
lowland Scotch, and they used not long ago to wear a dress only known in
the Highlands.
To this day the Gaelic language is universal among the people of
Gairloch, and they cling to it with the utmost affection. In it are
embalmed all the traditions and stories of the days that are gone, and
the songs and poems of the bards both past and present.
Gaelic, which in the old books is called "Erse" or "Irish," has many
dialects. The language of the natives of the west coast of Ireland is
not materially different from that of the Scottish Highlanders. The
Gaelic of Gairloch is considered tolerably pure, though William Ross,
the Gairloch bard, who studied the subject closely, thought the Gaelic
of the Lews _par excellence_ the purest form of the language.
In the Old Statistical Account the Rev. Daniel Mackintosh stated that
Gaelic was in his time the prevailing language in Gairloch.
Sir George Steuart Mackenzie, in his "General Survey," expressed the
opinion that Gaelic was dying out; but the Rev. Donald M'Rae, minister
of Poolewe, in his paper on the parish of Gairloch in the New
Statistical Account, stated that the language then (1836) generally
spoken was the Gaelic, and added, "I am not aware that it has lost
ground within the last forty years." Mr M'Rae's remarks on the admixture
by young men of English or Scotch words with their Gaelic, and on the
purity in other respects of the language as spoken in Gairloch, will be
found in Appendix E.
The Gaelic language is as prevalent in Gairloch to-day as it was when Mr
M'Rae wrote his paper nearly fifty years ago, notwithstanding the near
approach of the railway (within five miles of the parish boundary), and
the greatly increased communication by steamers, which has taken place
during the interval. The religious services of the people are conducted
in Gaelic (though short English services are often added); there are
scarcely any houses where English is spoken round the table or by the
fire-side, though comparatively few are able to read Gaelic. At the same
time the knowledge of the English language is undoubtedly on the
increase, and the schools are taught in that language. Nevertheless even
children fresh from school seldom speak English when playing together.
Some ten years ago there was a great agitation for the restoration of
Gaelic teaching in the Highland schools, and the movement has recently
been revived, with the result that the Government are about to sanction
instruction in Gaelic as part of the curriculum, or at least as an
"extra subject." It was stated during the early stage of this agitation
that in many places Highland children learnt English only as a parrot
would, and did not understand its meaning. I took the trouble to see how
this was in Gairloch schools, and I can only say that the imputation did
not apply to the children I examined, for not only did many of them read
English remarkably well, but searching cross-examination proved that
they thoroughly understood the meaning of what they read.
There are still many of the older people who are unable to speak English
fluently, and some who do not understand it at all. The English spoken
by the young people as well as by most of the older natives who speak it
is a particularly pure form, untarnished by provincialism or Scottish
brogue. The smattering of Scotch occasionally to be met with is confined
to those who come in contact with persons from the Lowlands.
Occasionally a curious phrase occurs, the result of a literal
translation of some Gaelic expression. For instance, wondering whether a
grouse which flew behind a hill was the worse of a shot that had been
fired at it, I asked a stout young gillie, whose position enabled him to
see further round the hill, whether the bird had come down. He replied,
"When she went out of my sight she had no word of settling."
Gaelic literature has been well represented in Gairloch. John Mackenzie,
the author of the "Beauties of Gaelic Poetry," and many other works in
Gaelic (Part II., chap. xxii.), was a native of Gairloch; and Mr
Alexander Mackenzie, the editor of the _Celtic Magazine_, and the author
of many valuable works (some containing Gaelic pieces), is also a
Gairloch man. The Gaelic books especially pertaining to Gairloch are the
poems of William Ross, the Gairloch bard, edited by the late John
Mackenzie, and the poems of Duncan Mackenzie, the Kenlochewe bard,
edited by Mr Alexander Mackenzie.
There has been much diversity of opinion upon the question whether it
would not be better that the Gaelic language should be discouraged and
be assisted to die out. I believe some few of the Highlanders themselves
have adopted this unpatriotic view, but the contrary opinion, so ably
advocated by Professor Blackie, now appears to be gaining ground. It
seems quite possible that the Highlander may not only have a thorough
command of English, but may also retain his own expressive language with
its ennobling traditions. No doubt a knowledge of the language which is
the medium through which most of the business of the kingdom is
conducted has its importance; but surely the retention of their own
tongue by Highlanders must tend in great measure to foster a patriotic
feeling, which should lead them to do credit in their lives and conduct
to their native glens.
There is no separate record of the dress anciently worn by the natives
of Gairloch, but it was unquestionably the same as that of all the other
inhabitants of the Highlands of Scotland, viz., the Breacan an Fheilidh,
or belted or kilted plaid. In the _Celtic Magazine_, Vol. VIII., is a
treatise on the "Antiquity of the Kilt," by Mr J. G. Mackay. One curious
fact he mentions is, that the Norwegian king Magnus, in his expedition
to the Western Isles of Scotland in 1093, adopted the costume then in
use in the western lands, which no doubt included the parish of
Gairloch; so that we may if we please picture our prince of the Isle
Maree tragedy as wearing the Highland dress. From this notice of King
Magnus, and more particularly from the account given by John Taylor
(Part IV., chap. xx.) of the deer hunting at Braemar, we learn that the
Highlanders in old days expected all who came among them to adopt their
peculiar garb.
Sometimes the belted plaid was worn along with the "triubhais," or
"truis," or trews, a prolongation upwards of the tartan hose, fitting
tightly to the skin and fastened below the knees with buckles. These
trews were very different in appearance and make from the tartan
trousers worn by some Highland regiments in the present day. Oddly
enough the only representation extant of a Gairloch man of the old days,
viz., Donald Odhar, exhibits him in the tartan trews. This
representation is in the Mackenzie coat-of-arms on the Sabhal Geal at
Flowerdale. It was doubtless executed by a southern sculptor, long after
Donald Odhar lived and fought. But unquestionably the most usual--almost
universal--form of the Highland dress was the tartan plaid gathered into
pleats round the waist, where a belt kept it in position (thus forming
the kilt), the rest of the plaid being brought over the shoulder. The
name of the dress thus formed (Breacan an Fheilidh) means the plaid of
the kilt.
The present form of the Highland dress, in which the kilt--sometimes
called "philabeg"--is made up as a separate garment, has given rise to
much controversy. The strife is said to have originated in a letter in
the _Scots Magazine_ in 1798; it was stated that about 1728 one
Parkinson, an Englishman, who was superintendent of works in Lochaber,
finding his Highland labourers encumbered with their belted plaids,
taught them to separate the plaid from the kilt and sew the kilt in its
present form. Others say that the inventor of the kilt was Thomas
Rawlinson, of the Glengarry ironworks, who about the same date and for
the same reason introduced the supposed new dress.
Mr J. G. Mackay, in the treatise already referred to, proves
incontestably that the separate form of the kilt is very ancient, and
cannot have been the subject of a comparatively modern invention. The
truth seems to be that, whilst the belted plaid was most generally worn,
as requiring no tailoring, the separate kilt is of equal or greater
antiquity, and was at all times occasionally used on account of its
superior convenience, especially in those localities where the tailor's
art was practised. An incidental corroboration of Mr Mackay's view is to
be seen in a plan of Aberdeen, dated 1661, preserved in the municipal
buildings of that city. In a corner of the plan three figures are
represented, two of them in the lowland costume of the seventeenth
century, and the third, a young man, dressed in a kilt and short coat
without plaid, being exactly the form of the Highland dress as now
generally worn. The Highland figure was probably introduced to record
the then semi-Highland character of Aberdeen.
In order to repress the Highland _esprit_, an act (20th George II., cap.
51) was passed after the battle of Culloden, which rendered it illegal
for any man or boy after 1st August 1747 to wear the Highland dress. The
effect of this law was various. In some parts it was rigidly enforced,
and the kilt was generally abandoned, whilst those few who persisted in
wearing it were severely punished. In other places evasions of the act
were winked at by the authorities; men who procured the legal breeches
would hang them over their shoulders during journeys; others used the
artifice of sewing up the centre of the kilt between the legs; whilst
others again substituted for the tartan kilt a piece of blue, green, or
red cloth wrapped round the waist, and hanging down to the knees, but
not pleated.
In the Old Statistical Account (1792) there are many references to the
Highland dress and to the effect of the passing of this act. In the
account of the parish of Petty, Inverness-shire, we read, "The Highland
dress is still retained in a great measure. The plaid is almost totally
laid aside; but the small blue bonnet, the short coat, the tartan kilt
and hose, and the Highland brogue, are still the ordinary dress of the
men. The women in like manner retain the Highland dress of their sex,
but have adopted more of that of their low country neighbours than the
men."
The Old Statistical Account tells us nothing of the dress of the
inhabitants of Gairloch; but in the notice given of the neighbouring
parish of Kincardine, in the same county, is the following:--"The act
1746, discharging the Highland dress, had the worst of consequences.
Prior to that period the Highland women were remarked for their skill
and success in spinning and dying wool, and clothing themselves and
their households, each according to her fancy, in tartans, fine,
beautiful, and durable. Deprived of the pleasure of seeing their
husbands, sons, and favourites in that elegant drapery, emulation died,
and they became contented with manufacturing their wool in the coarsest
and clumsiest manner, perhaps thinking that since they _must_ appear
like the neighbouring lowlanders, the less they shone in the ornaments
of the lowland dress they would be the more in character. Their
favourite employment thus failing them, rather than allow their girls to
be idle they made them take to the spinning of linen yarn, in which few
are yet so improved as to earn threepence per diem, and much, if not the
most of the small earnings of these spinners, is laid out upon flimsy
articles of dress; whilst that conscious pride, which formerly aspired
at distinction from merit and industry, is converted into the most
ridiculous and pernicious vanity."
The act forbidding the kilt was repealed in 1772. It had in many parts
done its work, and though its repeal was in some places hailed with joy
and celebrated by the bards, the Highland garb does not appear to have
generally regained its former position as the ordinary dress of the
people.
In the early part of the nineteenth century, as James Mackenzie and
others inform me, the kilt was still the dress of many men in Gairloch,
who never put on the trews until old age came, and in some cases not
even then. As an instance, he says he remembers seeing Hugh M'Phail, a
Gairloch man then living at the head of Loch Broom, measuring out
herrings from his boat on a cold day in a hard winter, with four inches
of snow on the ground and thick ice. Hugh wore only his shirt and kilt;
he had put off his jacket for the work. He and his two brothers always
wore the kilt; they were all fine men, and two of them were elders of
the church of Loch Broom, under the Rev. Dr Ross. Other incidental
references to the Highland dress of Gairloch men will be found in James
Mackenzie's stories in Part II., chap. xxv.
Up to the present generation the kilt was still occasionally worn in
Gairloch, especially at festive gatherings. That it had become
infrequent, yet was not altogether abandoned, may be inferred from the
following advice given upon dress in his "Hints" by the late Sir Francis
Mackenzie, Bart.:--"The nature of this must depend upon your local
situation, since it is evident that what is fitted for our mountains
would be ill suited to the wants of the fisherman. As an inland labourer
or shepherd, the ancient costume of the country, the kilt, hose, plaid,
and bonnet, with a warm stout cloth short jacket, will be found the most
serviceable, since it admits of a pliancy in the limbs admirably adapted
either for labour or climbing our bare and heathery hills. No danger can
possibly arise from exposing the limbs to the wet and cold, whilst the
loins and back are protected by the thick folds of a kilt and plaid from
severity of weather. I may too, without being liable to the charge of
national vanity, say, that however much the dress of our ancestors has
been lately laid aside, it gives a manly and graceful appearance at all
times to the wearer. I have witnessed its attractions amongst the sons
and daughters of peace in every country of Europe, and it has marked our
bravery in battle wherever a plaid has appeared. It has the sanction of
antiquity in its favour; it is associated with the virtues and triumphs
of Roman citizens; and I should regret its being laid aside, because I
am decidedly of opinion that national dress is everywhere a strong
incentive to the wearer not to disgrace the region which he proudly
claims as the country of his birth."
The Highland dress is now only worn in Gairloch by a few gentlemen,
pipers, keepers, and some of the better-to-do schoolboys. Its
disappearance from among a people who cling so tenaciously to the
Highland tongue is passing strange. By some it has been attributed to
the inferior hardiness of the modern Highlander, a reason which is
perhaps suggested by the following remark in the "General Survey" of Sir
George Steuart Mackenzie (1810):--"The first indications of the
introduction of luxury appeared not many years ago, in the young men
relinquishing the philabeg and bonnet, which are now almost rarities."
The Gairloch company of rifle volunteers originally wore the kilt, but
about the year 1878, in common with the majority of the battalion to
which they are attached, they agreed to substitute Mackenzie tartan
trousers. The change was made partly on the ground of economy. After the
review of the Scottish volunteers at Edinburgh on 25th August 1881,
which was attended by the Ross-shire battalion, including the Gairloch
company, a general wish was expressed that the example of the volunteer
battalions of the adjoining counties should be followed, and the kilt
resumed. The Gairloch company unanimously petitioned their gallant
colonel to restore the kilt.
The ordinary dress of most Gairloch men is now the same as in the
lowlands, except that some of those engaged as shepherds, keepers, and
gillies wear knickerbockers, which display the hose; some men still
carry plaids and don the blue bonnet.
Gairloch is justly celebrated for its hose, which are knitted in immense
variety of pattern and colour, some being in imitation of old forms of
tartan. In the old days the hose worn with the Highland costume were cut
from the same web as the tartan of which other parts of the dress were
made, but now all hose are knitted. The "diced" patterns are relics of
the old tartans.
The Dowager Lady Mackenzie of Gairloch writes as follows regarding the
Gairloch hose:--"At my first visit to Gairloch, in 1837, I employed a
lady from Skye who was staying at Kerrysdale to instruct twelve young
women in knitting nice stockings with dice and other fancy patterns.
When I came to act as trustee, and to live constantly at Flowerdale, I
started the manufacture of the Gairloch stockings in earnest, having
spinners, dyers, and knitters, all taught and superintended during the
ten years I resided there; on my leaving and going abroad, Sir Kenneth
gave the concern into the hands of the head gamekeeper, Mr George Ross.
Now, dozens of pairs are brought by the women to the hotels and
steamers, and large quantities go to Inverness, Edinburgh, and London;
£100 worth has been sold in one shop."
[Illustration: A MUTCH.]
The dress of the women of Gairloch scarcely varies from that of the
country women in any other part of the kingdom. The principal
distinction is to be seen in the retention by some women of the mutch,
or mob-cap (_see illustration_), which they still wear, and make up with
considerable taste.
Maidens until the last few years never wore caps, bonnets, or other
headgear, only a ribbon or snood to keep the hair in place. Any other
headdress was considered a disgrace. Even yet a few girls go to church
without bonnets; and within the last dozen years this was almost
universal. Now, however, the majority of the young women try even to
surpass their sisters in towns in following the fashions of the day;
some girls appear on Sundays with almost a flower-garden on their heads.
The Rev. Donald M'Rae truly remarked, in his statement in the New
Statistical Account fifty years ago (and it is still true), that "when a
girl dresses in her best attire, her very habiliments, in some
instances, would be sufficient to purchase a better dwelling-house than
that from which she has just issued."
Dr Mackenzie writes on this point as follows:--"In my early days about
six or eight bonnets would be the number on Sunday in our west coast
(Gairloch) church in a five or six hundred congregation, and these only
worn by the wives of the upper-crust tenantry. The other wives wore
beautiful white 'mutches,' _i.e._ caps, the insides of which were made
up with broad pretty ribbons, which shewed themselves through the
outside muslin. Oh! what a descent from them to modern bonnets! The
unmarried women always had their hair dressed as if going to court, and
were quite a sight, charming to see, compared with their present
abominable hats and gumflowers. But when a visitor at Tigh Dige
(Flowerdale) expressed wonder how they contrived to have such beautiful
glossy heads of hair, set up as by a hairdresser, every Sunday, my
father would say, 'No thanks, the jades stealing the bark of my young
elms!' It seems a decoction of elm bark cleans and polishes hair
marvellously; which accounted for many a young elm of my father's
planting having a strip of bark, a foot long by say six inches wide,
removed from the least visible side of the tree, as an always welcome
present from a 'jade's' sweetheart on a Saturday. I don't believe they
ever used oil or grease on their shining heads. So universally were
mutches worn by all in the north of the working classes who were
married, that when we settled in Edinburgh in 1827, my widowed nurse was
drawn there by a well-doing son to keep house for him, and my mother
having given her a very quiet bonnet to prevent her being stared at in
Princes Street when wearing her mutch and visiting us, on her first
appearance in a bonnet the dear old soul declared she nearly dropped in
the street, for everybody was just staring at her for her pride in
wearing a bonnet as if she was a lady!"
[Illustration: CABAR LAR, OR TURF PARER.
SCALE--ONE INCH TO A FOOT.]